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Tax watch: No explanation for library chief's paid leave

David McKay Wilson, dwilson3@lohud.com 11:48 p.m. EDT May 8, 2014

The Ossining Public Library board president has filed disciplinary charges against James Farrell, which could lead to his dismissal. While the charges are pending, he's on paid leave, collecting his $105,000-a-year salary.

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Ossining Public Library Director James Farrell is tackling the topic of residents who reside in overlapping library districts and are therefore paying for two libraries. Farrell is pictured on the mezzanine level of the library, Jan. 5, 2012. ( Mark Vergari/The Journal News )(Photo: Mark Vergari/The Journal News)Buy Photo

Story Highlights

Ossining Public Library Director James Farrell was put on administrative leave in February

Disciplinary charges against Farrell were filed on April 29

Farrell is on paid administrative leave, which means he still collects his $105,000-a-year salary

When the Greenburgh Central 7 schools put Superintendent Ron Ross on paid administrative leave this week, taxpayers had some clue as to why: racist and sexist slurs he allegedly used when referring to the school employees he managed.

Those charges were included in a federal lawsuit filed a week ago by several Greenburgh employees, including the Woodlands High School principal. At least Greenburgh taxpayers will know why they'll be paying Ross' salary — at more than $200,000 a year — as the disciplinary case inches along.

But Ossining schools taxpayers are still waiting to learn what happened at the Ossining Public Library this winter. On Feb. 19, the library's board of trustees voted unanimously to put Library Director James Farrell on administrative leave, pending the filing of disciplinary charges against the Cortlandt resident.

He's has been home ever since, collecting his pay, at $105,000 a year, while the library figured out how to remove Farrell from the payroll. In February, the library board's minutes reported that the panel wanted to avoid the expense of further litigation by settling its dispute with Farrell, who, in the news release announcing his 2010 hiring, was called "one of the foremost authorities on library law in New York."

By late April, however, the library board had yet to strike a deal with the veteran library professional. That's when board President Art Jay said he had filed disciplinary charges against Farrell under Civil Service Law Section 75, which allows for the removal or discipline of public employees.

Such disciplinary proceedings can drag on for years, with taxpayers picking up the tab for the legal proceeding as well as the salary and benefits of the sidelined public employee, and that employee's replacement.

Taxpayers may get a glimpse of the charges at the administrative hearing on the charges, which courts have held are open to the public, said Robert Freeman, executive director of New York's Committee on Open Government.

"I'm the only one who knows anything," said Jay, a retired music teacher from Ossining's Brookside Elementary School, now in his third year as library board president. "I filed the charges, and now it will go before a hearing officer, who will provide the board with a recommendation. The officer will say whether you have grounds to fire him, or you don't have grounds to fire him."

No one answered the phone at Farrell's home on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Farrell, 68, who was stationed with the U.S. Marine Corps in Da Nang in the early days of the Vietnam conflict, got his start in the library field, running the book-lending service at a maximum security prison, according to a 2010 interview in The Journal News. He worked for 23 years for the New York State Library in Albany, then became a consultant to libraries throughout the state.

Farrell's reassignment comes two years after he began informing the public that homeowners in at least 87 communities around the state were paying double for library services in their communities. That included almost 2,000 residents of Briarcliff Manor who were taxed for both the Briarcliff Manor Public Library and the Ossining Public Library. Briarcliff residents who live in Ossining pay for the Briarcliff library through their village taxes and pay for Ossining through their school taxes. About 200 Yorktown residents in the Ossining school district also pay library taxes to Ossining and Yorktown.

Farrell suggested possible solutions to the double-taxation issue, which would each require state legislation. His suggestions included letting voters in those areas vote on which library they wanted to support, or letting homeowners individually select which library on which they would be taxed.

His initiatives, however, gained little traction as the library dealt with the state tax cap, Jay said.

"It looked like it was going to be a very long, slow slog in the state Legislature," he said. "Although we considered it, we thought our energies were best spent locally."

And now starts the long, slow slog with Farrell's disciplinary hearings, for which a date has yet to be set.